Review Video Camera | Flip Video

"We're thinking about getting a Flip video camera for the youth group. When I went to the sight I saw I could skin the camera with a picture. Check out what a EBC Branded camera looks like."

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Live Like Wonderful:

HT: Vitamin Z

A taste of parenting?

Tonight, I was hurt by someone who I had attempted to build a relationship of trust and honesty with.  They used me.  They used our relationship as a cover-up for their sin.  They tracked my name and the name of our ministry through the mud, potentially.  And, I am heartbroken.  I just want to know, "why would you do this after all we have worked for?"  I want to shout that, but, I don't think shouting will help.

Is this what it's like when you pour yourself into someone and they turn around and make the sinful choice anyway?  It feels like I was betrayed by my inner circle.  Yikes, for a second I almost make a comparison to Jesus and Judas.  This has nothing on that.  But, it still feels like all the progress we had made just went out the door.

A lesson in all this is, "Honesty at all times".  Which is a struggle for me.  I'm a recovering liar.  I'm feeling first hand what I made my parents feel like every time I threw them under the bus.

Colossians 3:9-11

⁹Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices ¹⁰and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. ¹¹Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.

I think lying does so much damage.  I can see from my own past as an avid liar the pain it can cause and the tremendous loss of time.  Most horrible is the loss of trust.  I think the devil became the father of lies because he knew that lies were easy.  He couldn't because the father of remarkable evidence, so he went with the next best thing.  If we lie to one another and break that trust, then how can we feel loved by our faith community?  


God, let this be a lesson to me.  Help me to foster a climate of honesty and transparency.  Make my world a place where loving correction is never replaced with judgement.  Most importantly, help me to keep your image in my mind.  Christ be my all and take all of me.

Strippers vs. Church or Bring A Stripper To Church Day:

Church Marketing Sucks has an interesting story and some food for thought.

http://bit.ly/cnmTLK

The Donkey, the Stallion, and the Strategy of the Hills :: Desiring God Christian Resource Library

The Donkey, the Stallion, and the Strategy of the Hills :: Desiring God Christian Resource Library

A story by John Piper that I thought was pretty cool that he wrote for or around Palm Sunday. Give it a read.

I thought this idea that the character of The King says towards the end carried a significantly dense weight. "When we have given all we can
Then we will fight, but only then." When has a all powerful God given His all? When has he run out of love and patience? The story is great and I would love to hear your opinions on the questions It raised in my mind and maybe hear some of what it stirred up in yours.

God is good?

At least one of my youth are dealing with this issue, "If God is love then how could he ever punish?"  We're going to be taking a look at this topic later on in the year, but I came across this video and thought that D.A. Carson does a great job in just a few minutes.  So, check it out.



How can God be loving yet send people to hell? from A Passion for Life on Vimeo.

"time to collect" with adrian peterson, gary busey and shaq

First Person Tetris:

Have you ever said to yourself, "I wish I could better understand the plight of the shapes in this game that I am playing, right now." I know I have, because essentially I'm sending them to their death. When I finalize a row, BOOM! They just disappear. I'm sure that shape doctors have been working on it for a while now and are soon to come out with a cure for spontaneous proximity based disappearance syndrome (SPBDS). While they do that why don't you try to get better acquainted with the mind of a shape as it spends it's brief life cycle spinning and dropping to it's doom.

You barbarian.

 http://www.firstpersontetris.com/

Zip Snip saves Christmas:

I saw this on tv and it made me lol.

The Wreck of the Deutschland:

Have I posted this poem before? Just incase I haven't, I'll post the whole thing here for you to read. I love it.  The poem is considerably long so it's entirety is after the jump.  But, I'll go ahead and let you know what it's about...cuz you won't get it from the poem easily.

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–89). Poems. 1918.

4. The Wreck of the Deutschland

To the happy memory of five Franciscan Nuns exiles by the Falk Laws drowned between midnight and morning of Dec. 7th. 1875

Why aren't you reading SCL?

This most recent post from the killer blog "Stuff Christians Like" is awesome because it talks about my job and that's cool, right? So, take a look at it here.

I also love it because the first line is, "“Do you ever think you’ll be a real minister someday?”
I get asked that question pretty often.

Two Songs:

I heard the first song a few days ago and just had to share it with everyone. I'm sure that you've all heard it before, but, I think I love it. The second is from a guy who's music I got turned onto at Refuge two years ago when Christian Stanfill covered John Mark McMillan's song "How He Loves". Check them out.

Death In His Grave (Performance Video) from john mark mcmillan on Vimeo.

Ah, so that's how it's done:

The Sound Of My Childhood Dying:

Sounds a lot like a mash-up of "Wild Thing" and "The Smurfs Theme".

One of my youth wrote this:

Being a Christian is so much more than what the hypocrites portray it to be. It's more than wearing a Cross neclace or having a bracelett saying, "what would Jesus do?" It's about weilding that symbolic meaning on your heart. It's not about singing in Church or reading the Bible. It's about finding the Truth inside those things. It's not about giving to the poor or lending a helping hand. It's about who you glorify in the process. It's not about raising your hands or falling on your knees. It's about who your doing it for. It's not about what you say or what you think. It's about what your heart wants. It's not about climbing to the top or being called, "Top Dog." It's about the falls and fails on the way there. It's so much more than what you and I say or do. It's about what your heart desires. Do you desire sin? Or do you thrive for perfection?

Thoughts?

Lost: Finale

I'm definitely going to be putting up some of my thoughts on the finale in the next couple days.  I was immediately irritated, but the more it settles in the more I like it.

Did you watch the finale?  what did you think?

He Just Quit:

Tonight something weird happened.

The revival preacher got distracted one too many times, became frustrated and just called it.

He quit mid-story, mid-sentence even, and it was one of the most interesting moments of my time at this church.

I mean, I don't know if I would have done it the same way he did.  I know that I've wanted to do exactly what he did.  But, seriously, it takes a serious set of juevos to just quit.

Here's the thing.  Tomorrow, is youth night, I've been planning for the teens to come be a part of the the revival for a month.  I have nothing prepared.  Pulling the kids out doesn't seem like an option.  Pray that we do not have a repeat, I want the kids to hear what, if it follows the last couple, will be a powerful message.

Late-night Facebook Chat: An Old Friend

1:15amHim

last time i saw you you were working at (music store) music

1:15amMe

yeah

I had to get out of there

hated it

honestly

I love what i do now

1:16amHim

did you have to go to seminary

1:16amMe

nah

I'm planning on it after she gets done

1:17amHim

well how did you go from the person you were to the man you are now?

1:17amMe

you know honestly

I'm not a drastically different person, at least from my view point

1:18amHim

me im the same person but with a lot more responsibility

1:18amMe

I get that question from people who knew me in high school though

I dunno, I know I'm different.  Maybe I've become numb to the drastic change that has occurred and is occurring inside of me.  None the less, I'm still just a graceless day away from being Chris at 16 again.

Fortune Cookie or Joel Osteen:

I thought this was pretty funny, Tim Challies put a list of quotes from Joel Osteen up against a list of fortune cookie fortunes to see if we could pick them apart.  Honestly, I don't know if I could because I was hearing Joel Osteen say them in my head.  Whether he said them or not, he could and he'd say it with a smile.


Here's a taste.  See if you can guess the author of these two then head to the website to check your answers.  For what it's worth....I missed these.

"Avoid focusing on the negative aspects of the past."


"When you can't naturally feel upbeat, it can sometimes help to act as if you did."

Name Drop:

The incredibly wise and unequivocally well mannered (and soon to be going from mono to stereo in the kid department) author of Call To Die, responded to a comment I left on his blog.  He helped me get a better handle on the SBC nomination process and fleshed out why knowing about it at all is so important.  While you may not be super into the topic, I recommend giving it a read just to see how eloquently he crafts his answers.  You may even learn you somethin'!

Check it out!

The Deadliest Catch? No, The Deadliest Dunk:

'How do you practice that?

"Practice? I would love to tell you that I put hours of practice in but I had to keep this one quiet so that I wasn't told not to do it. I did spend countless hours preparing mentally."'






He didn't even practice it.

Player Haters, Elevators:

Late-night Facebook Chat:

 

12:16amMichael

iiiii wanna know

have you ever

seen

the rain

12:16amMe

yes

12:17amMichael

good.

That was all...

Two Roads, I Took The One Less Psalty:

When I was growing up my parents didn't go to church all the time.  They went some, especially when I was enrolled at a private Christian school, but church was very early, my people don't do early.  The perk/tragedy of all this would be my extreme lack of any and all knowledge of the 80's Christian children's subculture.  I remember going over to a friends house and my mom half warning and half extolling me to be careful, "they are very religious."  Mom was right, but they were also really nice, so score one for you old Christian neighbors.

I can't remember the name of their son, but he had albino white hair.  It was blindingly blond and curly, so very curly, almost like if the hair kept changing it's mind, "Man, I gotta get away from the scalp!"  but just a few weeks later, "I missed you scalp, I'll never do that again!"  Oh, fickle hair.  He also looked nothing like the Albino in Princess Bride.

So, I'm hanging out with Blondie, and we are shuttled to his room to play.  I'm waiting for the video games, legos, and Ninja Turtles** to get broken out, but that doesn't happen.  We just kind of chilled, he was a big outdoors and sports kid while I was an indoors and imagination kid.  Not saying there isn't overlap, but we had different ideas of what should be happening.  As an olive branch, Blondie asked me if I wanted to listen to music.  I said, "sure".

He pops in a tape and a choir of children singing saccharine sweet tunes about church and trusting God bursts from the speakers, it freaked me out a little.  I asked, "Blondie....what is this?"  to which he replied "Charlie the Church Mouse."  I told him, "Never heard this before."  Blondie was having a hard time processing what it meant that my parents didn't love me enough to introduce me to Charlie.  "You've never heard of Charlie the Church Mouse?"  he asked, "No...but I really like this."  (So you know, I went on a search for Charlie online.  I had remembered the mouse being named Churchy.  Google is leading me to believe I was wrong.)

I in fact did not like "this".  I thought it was dumb.  I also thought that sitting and listening to a full two sided tape of Charlie's adventures would be miserable so I took one for the team and offered to go get embarrassed at basketball.  That was pretty much my one and only experience with Christian children's media till Veggietales came on the scene 10 years ago, which I was thankfully saved near there and was gracious towards the new generation of "Church Mice".  Also, Charlie with a Jetpack.

My wife on the other hand....she grew up with the stuff.  She and her sisters would watch videos and memorize songs.  They would pick characters out and mimic the part while dancing along with them.  Some of her fondest memories are formed around watching something called "Psalty the Singing Songbook."  I was introduced to Psalty last night as my wife broke out in song and dance in our bathroom.  Fun side note, I think you'll see that Psalty's career didn't end.  He just took of the costume and became Flabber from Big Bad Beetleborgs.  (Trust me...you'll see it in the videos.)


I didn't believe a word of the story she was telling me about Psalty and his adventures.  I certainly didn't believe that this was a live action show either.  So, where do I head?  Youtube, that's where.  I found this.  Take the jump and get ready for a trip down memory lane or a quick fill up for your nightmare fuel tank.



 

Less Q.Q more Pew Pew:

  Right now our church is having a vote.  Actually, we already had the vote.  The vote was unanimous.  But, we're going to be voting on it again.  I'll tell you about that vote and then I'm going to show you a video that is hard to watch.

*Apparently the video was removed from youtube today.  It showed what was supposed to be the beatings that Christians are recieving in Orissa.*

**It didn't take long to find another copy.**

Just take your pretty little self to the other side by pressing that button called The Jump.  But, Alice...are you ready for the rabbit hole?

A first:

Today I received my first cease and desist note from an upset parent.  Also, I got my first comment forum bashing ever.  I kind of feel like I've arrived on the internet.  Now, mind you, my name was never involved so it wasn't a direct attack on my character, but it still stung, because I knew even if no one else did.

Let me explain.

Our Wallets expose our Hearts:

in 2008, traffickers made an estimated $31 billion buying and selling. In the same year, approximately 0.5% of this figure was spent by the GLOBAL community to combat human trafficking. ~ UNIAP

 To help that number sink in here are some other statistics.  McDonald's on average makes $21 Billion a year.
155,000,000 is .5% of 31 Billion.  That's also about the same amount that people spent on Halo 3 on it's release day.  Comparatively, The Dark Knight made 155 million in it's first weekend. 

About a week ago Avatar passed $550 million in ticket sales domestically.

The weighted average global sales price of a slave is calculated to be approximately $340, with a high of $1,895 for the average trafficked sex slave, and a low of $40 to $50 for debt bondage slaves in part of Asia and Africa.

The money spent on Avatar in a month could have freed 290,237 trafficked sex slaves.  The same amount could have purchased 11 Million slaves out of their debt bondage working conditions.  There are believed to be roughly 29 million slaves world wide.